Even by the standards of AOC, her comments on Father Damien were moronic. This article offers a very thorough (and generous) analysis of her beliefs.
It’s not an original thought, but it’s one that bears repeating: iconoclasts like Ms. Ocasio-Cortez have a pitifully stunted view of humanity. And I mean that: we should feel pity for them. Imagine looking at an image of someone like Father Damien (or Queen Lili’uokalani, for that matter) and seeing nothing but a demographic: sex and race and nationality. He dedicated his life to providing pastoral and medical care to thousands of souls who suffered from a painful and humiliating disease before finally succumbing to the disease himself. Why can’t Ms. Ocasio-Cortez see that? Because her mind is infected with a very different illness: a poisonous ideology which renders all white men as mere villains in the tragedy of European imperialism.
“Stunted” is the perfect word for her. Is it only because she is young? Will she grow out of it? One lives in hope.